As a quick side note, this is based off of Ziva's POV, so Eli's obvious discontent in not having any more grandchildren and his opinion on it will not be mentioned. Without really having to be told, Eli knew that he could not disclose the information he knew about Ziva's inability to have children, for she would probably kill him and bring him back to life, just to find his nose and thumbs missing. lololol

Enjoy part 2!

It was 8:02 when Ziva got back to the house from her run. As she opened the door tiredly, she called out, "I'm home!"

When there was no response, Ziva removed her earbuds and glanced around quickly. No sign of a forced entry, or the remnants of a fight.

"They went out." A voice spoke aloud, confirming the agent's assumptions. Unfortunately, it was not from the person she wanted neither confirmation nor a conversation with.

She turned to face the couch that held her father, and unzipped her first layer of warmth without looking at him. Ziva tossed the puffy lime-green vest onto the couch, an explanation she knew she could use as an excuse not to sit there.

"Well?" Eli asked. Finally, his daughter glanced up at him briefly, an angry gleam in her eye. He smiled grimly at her, pushed the vest away with the back of his hand and patted the leather. "Come; sit."

Ziva complied, but she wasn't happy about it. As she sat, Eli noted the gun bulging in her left jacket pocket, the hand that remained jammed in beside it. He would have to choose his words carefully. "So have you—"

"Yes." The NCIS agent smoothed her fly-aways back with a palm.

"And…?"

Ziva merely looked at him, before returning her gaze to the floor. "What do you think?" she whispered at it. It was not a threatening comment, but one laced with emotions Eli could barely comprehend. The tone of her voice…he recognized it as the same one that she used when she had first learned that Talia died.

"Ah." Eli leaned back, disappointment sinking in with him. "So that is a no?"

His daughter leaned back with him. "You don't come to my wedding, you respond to my email regarding Teemo's birth with one word: congratulations. You haven't contacted me at all since I resigned…" she trailed off to the distant memory before continuing, "Why would I do this for you, Eli? Follow in your footsteps?" Ziva finally turned to face him, a new sort of shine in her eyes. "Haven't I made it obvious enough that I am not you, Abba?"

Silence filled the house.

"I know," Eli coughed to raise his voice slightly. "I know that you are not me. I know that it is a big thing to ask of you, to come back to Mossad after…well, after all this time.

"But, my dear, despite what you might think, I still came to you first. You are my daughter…the only one I have left. With both Ari and Tali gone, and your mother…" Eli lifted his glasses off the bridge of his nose with shaking hands. His slow breathing was equally uneven. Ziva watched his features carefully, not wanting to be mistaken. Was her father actually…apologizing? Confessing? This was not the Eli David that Ziva knew. This was a broken man, an exposed man, now just a shell of his former self.

This was new.

"Abba," Ziva coaxed his attention to her with a soft voice. He lifted his chin to look her in the eye, making her laugh to herself and reach forward to take his callused hand. "Being the Director is a great honor, but I have already survived through so many at NCIS. If I ever became one myself...well, I don't want to know how my family would have to go on if I were ever in Director Vance's position…or worse. I…" Ziva gulped down hard, and attempted to clear her muddled mind before speaking slowly, trying to banish any thoughts of the loss of the NCIS Director of almost 10 years before he, too, had been killed. "I don't want to put Teemo or Tony in the position you put Mama and Talia and me in. I don't want my child to live through what I had to."

Eli smiled shyly, ashamedly. "You were always so strong, Ziva." He murmured. "I only wish I could be as strong as you. To put…to put love before power."

And she knew what her father meant. He had put power before love, in place of love, for he did not know how to love, himself. Eli David knew how to lead, how to command. He did not know how to be a father, but he did know how to protect.

In some ways, Eli was better than Ziva; he had seen much more from behind those glasses. But she had seen a lot, too, and it had made her strong. It made her learn what love was, and what it could be. She knew so much more than her father did, and it made her stand tall.

Ziva knew all of this already, but hearing it come from another person, especially her father, set it in stone. She was strong.

"Power is not love," the agent mused to herself.

"No," Eli agreed. "It is not. I only wish I could have learned that years ago." He looked his daughter, pride evident in his gaze. "But I am glad that you have."

Ziva broke eye contact to stare off somewhere else. "So am I."

Once again, silence, like an old friend, returned to share this moment of simplicity and the deep complex of family with the father and daughter. It continued to stay in the house until Tony and Teemo returned, and the door would stay open for the welcome guest for years after. And when it did revisit, Ziva would sit and cherish it, feel the embrace of the memories the silence carried with it, and grin to herself, for she knew she had made the right choice. She was right. Power was not love.

This—everything and everyone around her—was love.

Personally? I think that was a crap ending. Um did you like my headcanons? About my GASP mention of Vance's death sometime during those 16 years? (the rest were really in part 1)

ANYWAYS hope you enjoyed, I did. And if you read this all the do way through, creds to you! The Agent loves each and every one of her readers; never forget that you awesome dumplings you C:

AND if I got any one of my facts wrong, tell me, don't tell me, whatever. It's your life.

So now that the A/N is over…

Your thoughts my lovelies?